Tribal organisations should recognise the Indian state’s attempt to lower the legal barriers erected by the Forest Rights Act (FRA) as a threat to their survival. The Committee on Public Undertakings’ suggestion that a project require the consent of only most, rather than all, gram sabhas affected by that project, as the FRA intends in spirit, portends a significant jurisprudential change. A regime that deems the acquiescence of 70%-75% of affected gram sabhas to suffice will reduce gram sabhas from democratic bodies protecting the constitutional rights of its specific inhabitants to corporate stakeholders. If the rule enters force, a project developer may bypass the consent of a village located directly within a proposed reservoir, say, while ensuring that less affected villages have provided their no-objection certificates. The matter is of a piece with the political fight over classifying tribal communities: by altering the demographic composition of who qualifies as a community member, the state will have an easier time splitting a village assembly and engineering consent. The refusal of the Tribal Affairs Ministry to claim jurisdiction over this issue creates a dangerous regulatory vacuum that leaves the Centre and State governments unchecked to rewrite the rules by which forested land is diverted for non-forest use. While the FRA does not include a clause requiring a no-objection certificate from every affected gram sabha, it is untrue that there is at present no legal requirement that gram sabha decisions can be bypassed.The government has been rapidly scaling up energy infrastructure, including the long-stalled Teesta-IV project, to meet macroeconomic goals while, in a previous avatar, having passed the FRA to undo “historical injustices” meted out to forest-dependent communities. But the path the state seems willing to pursue, hewing to the notion that the consent requirement was never part of the FRA, is plainly ignoble. If the Environment Ministry entertains the idea, it must change the relevant rules or legislation openly and democratically. The Tribal Affairs Ministry resorting to a technicality, between the FRA and the Environment Ministry’s rules, to recuse itself is hardly better as the bureaucratic manoeuvre could strip forest-dependent communities of their most potent legal instrument. The foundation of these communities’ livelihoods, culture, identity, and political autonomy is land, so they have fought to resist displacement and dispossession and to secure customary collective ownership. In recognition of the social and environment services ST communities continue to render in India and their contribution to national development, including helping meet India’s climate commitments, the Centre and States must also strengthen the powers conferred by the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement and Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Acts to gram sabhas in Scheduled Areas. Published - September 09, 2026 12:10 am IST